Miguel de los Santos Álvarez (1818-1892) was a friend and imitator of
Espronceda and the last surviving member of his school. He was one of
several who attempted the vain task of completing the "Diablo Mundo."
He was a guest of honor with Espronceda at the first reading of "El
Estudiante de Salamanca" at Granada in 1837. His verse is mediocre,
and he is best known for the _Cuento en prosa_ here quoted. This
Fitzmaurice-Kelly terms "a charming tale," and Piñeyro praises it
for the grace and naturalness of its irony. Rubén Darío gives some
interesting reminiscences of Santos Álvarez in his old age, "La vida
de Rubén Darío escrita por él mismo", Barcelona, n.d., chap. xxvii.
Apparently Santos Álvarez never outgrew the bohemianism of his youth.
The second quotation is from Mark xiv, 38: "The spirit truly is ready,
but the flesh is weak."
=693.= The narrative begun in Part First is now resumed at the point
where it was interrupted. We now know that it was Don Diego Pastrana who
lost his life in the duel described in the opening lines.
=717.= The omission of the usual accent of =impio= is intentional and
indicates how the word should be stressed in this verse. =Impío= is a
"word of double accentuation". See Introduction.
=729.= Notice how the absolute phrase =Los ojos fijos= is broken by the
insertion of the proper name. Poets depart from the usual word-order
with the utmost freedom.
=737. néctar jerezano:= sherry wine.
=738, 740. bastara, intentara=: to be translated as pluperfects.
=766.= It is necessary to supply a =que= to serve as the object of
=achaca=. This is readily to be inferred from the =que= in the verse
before, which is, however, used as a subject.
=793.= In this speech of Don Felix's there is rapid alternation between
direct address, in the second person, and side remarks in the third
person about the person addressed.
=800. tengo de=: we would have he de in modern prose.
=811.= The =que= in this verse is the =que= regularly following oaths
and asseverations. Cf. Tobler, "Vermischte Beiträge zur französischen
Grammatik," Leipzig, 1912, Article 17, pp. 57 f. Tobler gives the
following example from Calderón: =¡Vive Dios! que no he salido.= ("El
Mágico Prodigioso," Act III, v. 387.) In these examples, the =¡vive
dios!= is hardly more than an emphatic =digo=, and is followed by =que=
just as =digo= would be. Verse 810 is parenthetical.
=828. del=: construe with =mar=.
=833.= For the conclusion of the sentence here begun it is necessary to
turn to line 883. We have to do with a sentence of 54 lines.
=840.= The 1840 edition lacks the third =su=.
=853. fueron=: 'are past and gone.'
=861. del=: the later editions read =el=. Ditto in lines 862, 863, 866.
=De= is also omitted in 865.
=868. jamás=: I restore the 1840 reading. Later editions read =y no=.
=916. que=: a conjunction introducing a clause, the verb of which
(=pese=) has to be supplied.
=921.= The usual accent is intentionally omitted from =veame=. To read
this verse correctly the second syllable, and not the first, must
bear the stress. The bad prosody of this verse is discussed in the
Introduction.
=943.= The Dance of Death begins.
=1012. misteriosa=: late editors wrongly change to =misterioso=.
Espronceda is using =guía= as a feminine.
=1040. Dale=, etc.: 'plague take the tolling of the passing bell and
these towers dancing in tangled confusion to the measure of such a
concert.'
=1046. llegue=: I have emended =llegué= (which I believe Espronceda
did not intend on account of the "obstructing syllable" which that
accentuation would give to the verse) to =llegue=. I take =llegue= to be
the subjunctive of emphatic asseveration. See Bello-Cuervo, "Gramática
Castellana," paragraph 463. Other editors are perhaps right in
interpreting the passage differently. They suppress the period after
=maravillas=, the exclamation point before =Que=, and write =llegué=.
This makes equally good sense and is just as grammatical, but the verse
is less harmonious. This last point, however, is not a vital objection.
The two ways of editing this passage seem to me to offer little choice.
=1062.= Construe =en que= with =ha dado=, above.
=1112.= The quotation from Mark xiv, 38 applies especially to this
passage. Also to ll. 1626-1633.
=1121.= The three forms of address used by Don Félix in addressing _el
enlutado_ indicate his change of manner from politeness to insolence. He
begins with the polite third person singular form. Then, enraged by the
answer, he is intentionally insulting in verse 1126, wishing to provoke
a duel. As the other puts up a brave front, he next addresses him as an
equal (verse 1127) by using the second person plural. This was the
usual form of address between gentlemen of equal standing during the
Renaissance period. But, again losing his temper, he relapses into the
insulting second person singular (verse 1133 and following).
=1133. haga=: an instance of the use of the subjunctive after oaths and
asseverations. See Bello-Cuervo, "Gramática Castellana," paragraph 463.
=1311. una=: goes with =gradería= in the following verse.
=1385.= Beginning with this verse and ending with l. 1680, the poet
attempts to indicate the gathering and abating fury of the ghostly revel
by the successive lengthening and shortening of the verses. The final
verses also express Don Félix's waning strength. This device is an
attempt to imitate the _crescendo_ and _diminuendo_ effect of music.
This whole passage is an obvious imitation of Victor Hugo's "Les
Djinns," a poem included in "Les Orientales." Nowhere has Espronceda
shown greater virtuosity in the handling of meter.
=1448.= The nouns and infinitives in this and the following lines are
objects of =siente=, l. 1456.
=1703. Y si, lector=, etc.: 'And if, reader, you say it is a
fabrication, I tell it to you as they told it to me.' León Medina,
"Frases literarias afortunadas," _Revue hispanique_, Vol. XVIII, p. 226,
states that these two verses are a quotation from Juan de Castellanos,
an obscure poet of the sixteenth century, author of _Elegías de Varones
Ilustres de Indias_. (The first three parts of this work may be found
in Vol. IV of the _Biblioteca de Autores Españoles_; Part IV has been
edited by Paz y Melia for the _Colección de Escritores Castellanos_,
Vols. XLIV and XLIX. The passage in question may be found in Canto II,
octave 8.) Churchman, "Byron and Espronceda," _Revue hispanique_, Vol.
XX, p. 210, adds the information that Espronceda probably took the lines
directly from Villalta, who had quoted them in his historical novel _El
Golpe en Vago_, Madrid, 1835. This is made probable by the fact that
whereas Castellanos had written correctly =os lo cuento=, Villalta wrote
=te lo cuento=, Espronceda following him in this grammatical error.
The form =dijerdes=, an old form for the second plural of the future
subjunctive (modern =dijereis=), represents the syncopation of a still
older =dijéredes=. Grammatically the pronoun =os= should have been used.
Evidently both Villalta and Espronceda considered =dijerdes= to be a
second singular form. A modern editor cannot undertake to correct a
mistake made by the author. In Old Spanish infinitives could be very
loosely used. It was not necessary that the subject of a dependent
infinitive should be the same as that of the verb on which it depended.
The word =comento= here has the meaning "fiction," "fabrication." I find
this meaning given in none of the dictionaries, but it can readily be
inferred from the word =comentador=, which had as one of its meanings
"an inventor of false reports." =Comento=, like Latin _commentum_, has
as one of its meanings "fiction," "fabrication."
The writers of =leyendas= were fond of stressing the traditional nature
of their poems. Thus Zorrilla concludes his "Capitán Montoya":
El pueblo me lo contó
Sin notas ni aclaraciones,
Con sus mismas espresiones
Se lo cuento al pueblo yo.